Tag Archives: minimalist lifestyle

…at the Home & Garden Show

I’m so behind in my posts on the story of my journey to living a sustainable, regenerative lifestyle — and this one will likely be a surprise, given my post “To Yurt or Not to Yurt” — but it’s time to talk about the yurt I decided to buy. Yep, that’s right: I bought a yurt, and it’s currently living in a storage unit until I can get my driveway and home site cleared to put it on. (And that is waiting on a septic permit and perk test by the county health department. Goodbye plans for a composting toilet — for now. Covenants and restrictions aren’t the only barriers to living off-grid. But that’s a topic for another post.) My decision process went, as it does for most major purchases, something like this:

Research the purchase, as a general concept

Bookmark the snot out of links to a range of products

Agonize (which includes second-guessing making the purchase at all)

Research more, expanding the range of products and throwing in a few more to add to the confusion

Agonize/second-guess some more

Narrow the choices

Almost decide, but then agonize again instead

Repeat Steps 1-5

Wait too long, while some products drop off the map

Get sick of the whole darned thing and pull the trigger

And this is why my friends laughed when I posted on Facebook about my “impulse buy” of a yurt at a recent Home & Garden Show.

The Materials and Construction Debate

Traditionally, yurts — or ger, as they’re known in their country of origin — are semi-permanent structures made of felted yak wool used by the nomadic people of the Mongolian steppes. They have a single door-flap, a central opening at the top to let in light and let cook-fire smoke out (much like the hole at the top of a tipi), and no windows. A few purists follow this tradition, but most modern yurts are built using a variety of fabric laminates, with a few made of wood, more resembling a traditional Navajo hogan than a yurt.

Yak wool seemed a less practical (and more aromatic) choice, so I quickly focused on the dizzying array of other available materials. Fabric-based laminates leverage everything from a polyester/vinyl composite to cotton canvas, affording varying degrees of water-resistance, mildew resistance, flame resistance, and durability, among other qualities. Each fabric choice has its pros and cons: petroleum-based vs. ecologically sustainable; breathable vs. not; low-maintenance vs. maintenance-intensive. None of these decisions could be made without considering my new home’s climate and how long I planned to live in the yurt.

Construction approaches also vary greatly. Some yurts come as more-or-less “complete” kits, including decking, snap-together flooring, and insulation as part of the package, while others offer only the basic tent-like structure, leaving many of the refinements up to the adventurous DIYer. And, of course, you can buy plans for the wood yurts, taking DIY to a whole new level.

While a wood yurt would be, from my perspective, optimal for long-term inhabitation, they’re cost-prohibitive for me at this point in my journey. My concerns about condensation and mold — two battles I’ll have to fight, no matter what I opt for, living in a temperate rainforest — can be significantly decreased, even in a fabric-laminate yurt, with a ceiling fan to help with air flow and ventilation. The ventilation issue, in fact, focused my search on yurts with larger, venting domes. (And it didn’t hurt that the larger domes met my desire to gaze up at the night sky at night as I drift off to sleep.)

Size Matters

“Will it have a loft? I love the yurts with lofts. Sooooo pretty!”

“Have you seen those yurts where they build walls so you can divide it into rooms?”

“Oooo…I’ve seen some that were, like 40′ in diameter!”

So, size. I wanted something semi-permanent that could be moved, without a lot of trouble, to another part of the property and offered as a vacation rental for a “glamping” experience. (I resist the term, so you’ll just have to keep reading it in quotes on my blog. Sorry. It’s a silly thing, but I find the word ridiculous.) I wasn’t yet certain that a yurt would be my permanent dwelling choice, as I was still exploring other options. The need for portability ruled out most of the larger yurts on the market.

As for rooms and lofts: The yurt Bodhi and I stayed in over a year ago, in Virginia, was divided into a kitchen, a bathroom, a downstairs bedroom, and a very roomy bedroom loft — which we had to reach using a beautiful iron spiral stairway.

Bodhi couldn’t even begin to manage the stairs, so we slept in the bedroom on the first floor, which was situated under the loft. And which also meant that we were sleeping in a conventional box of a bedroom instead of under the beautiful central dome with its view of the stars. (Insert sad trombone here.)

Our struggle with the stairs highlighted the fact that neither Bodhi nor I were getting any younger, and adding stairs at this life stage seems silly. Moreover, dividing a yurt into rooms flies in the face of why I wanted to live in a yurt in the first place: the cozy feeling of being held in a circular embrace.

So, my yurt needed to be small-ish, without walls and without a loft I’d one day be admiring from afar on the first floor because my arthritic knees won’t carry me up those pesky stairs.

A Yurt of One’s Own

And, so, we arrive at the Home & Garden Show in Charlotte, NC.

In the 18 months or so since I’d started my research in earnest, I’d followed my decision-making process right down the path to standing in a yurt with Kathy Anderson and Sharon Morley from Blue Ridge Yurts — which was where I’d essentially started, except back then it was at their factory, and now it was at the show.

I’d planned to start with at least a 24′ yurt, potentially adding two 20′ yurts later — one to use as a bedroom (for privacy) and the other as a dining-/craft-room — so I wouldn’t feel so cramped over time. I wanted to start slightly larger because I knew that the first yurt would be the only yurt for several years, assuming I did, indeed, decide to make yurts my permanent housing solution.

But there I was, standing in a 20′ model yurt, and Kathy and Sharon were offering me a reduced price, and I was shaking hands and making appointments to have it broken down and delivered to my storage unit, and we were laughing, and…

…that’s how I acquired my yurt. My yurt.

Wow. I really own a yurt. *swoon*

Yeah, I know: This is a GUY walking into a yurt. That’s Rick, Yurt Dude Extraordinaire, from Blue Ridge Yurts, getting ready to break down and deliver my yurt to storage.

Learn more about Blue Ridge Yurts by visiting their New! Improved! website at http://www.blueridgeyurts.com

BTW: Their recent website upgrade removed the link to an article about the material they use, which is made to California-approved standards for fire-resistance. I figure that if Kathy’s and Sharon’s yurt fabric can stand up to regulations in a state where wildfires are a common occurrence, I can probably feel pretty good about it, too.

…And that Word Is: %&#?@!

The situation is actually kind of funny, in a way — and a cautionary tale, in another. It certainly highlights my inexperience (and naïveté) with buying raw land. The land I bought — The Boot (my nickname for it, based on its shape from the air) — was listed for sale as “unrestricted use.” Rife with possibility, n’est-ce pas? So it seemed…

“That’s great because it means you can do anything you want on the land,” folks said. “You can just pitch a tent and live however you like on it!”

The prospect was exciting to me because I knew that building my new life would be a multi-phase endeavor, as time and finances allowed. I wasn’t concerned about living in more primitive conditions than most folks might enjoy because my ultimate goal is to live as lightly as possible on the land. For me, this equates to some combination of:

Digging and excavating as little as possible

Living off-grid, using well water, solar power, and composting toilets

Catching, storing, and using rainwater run-off from roofs of any structures on the property

Foraging where possible, with small gardens to supplement my food supply

Erecting structures that minimized my ecological footprint, as best as possible

Offering a “glamping” experience that would allow guests to enjoy the natural beauty of the property without having to set up their own camp

Smaller, more affordable properties I looked at came with covenants and restrictions and were often situated in growing developments, where almost none of these things would have been achievable. Unrestricted land, where I could shape my life around the land without making too big a dent in it, seemed the perfect solution.

I Don’t Think that Word Means What You Think It Means

“Uhhhh…you know you’re going to have to dig a septic system, right?”

Ross and Elizabeth, from Cooperative Extension Services, and I were paused in a tiny grove of dying hemlocks, where I’d asked for their opinion on it as a potential home site. My reasoning was that the trees were dying anyway, so cutting them down to clear the site would have less impact than other places on the parcel. I’d mentioned my plans to use a composting toilet so I wouldn’t need septic. Ross and Elizabeth exchanged glances, then Ross spoke up.

“If you have water pumped into the dwelling, you have to have septic coming out. Health deparment regulations.” Ross finished.

“But the land is unrestricted use. My understanding is that I can pretty much set up camp here if I want to,” I replied. Ross assured me that the county health department and I had different ideas about the definition of unrestricted.

I’d planned to do some research, but my sweet Bodhi’s passing just two days after consulting with Ross and Elizabeth engulfed me in a grief and depression that crippled me for months on end. Instead of investigating further, I rather robotically went ahead with the closing. Believing as I did — as I do — that this land and I were somehow meant for each other, I buried my head deep in the sand, telling myself I’d figure it out later.

It’s later.

“Oh…that’s Illegal”

Ross was the first to poke at my definition of “unrestricted use.” Sam, the fellow I consulted with regarding road improvements and home site clearing, seconded Ross’s warning. I dove into the county website to review the regulations I should have reviewed before buying The Boot. (Gotta love hindsight!)

And, dang it all: Composting toilets truly are illegal in my county.

OK, I thought, I can still phase this. I’ve heard of other folks (in other counties and states) who’ve put a Porta-Potty on their property or had a permitted outhouse installed as a temporary measure while they built their home. I filled out the septic application so I could get the perk test I needed, just so Sam would know where to excavate my driveway and home site in the meantime, and called the county health department to ask about options. The information I received was pretty simple:

Composting toilet: Illegal.

Outhouse: Illegal.

Porta-Potty: Illegal.

“But I don’t plan to make any of them permanent solutions!” I told the woman on the phone, exasperated. (Not strictly true in the case of the composting toilet, but my vision was beginning to…evolve a bit.) “I live three hours away right now, and I just want to be able to live on the land so I can get started with the work.”

“Well, what did you plan to do until your home was built?” the woman asked.

“I was basically going to camp,” I ventured.

“Ohhh…” she replied, “camping on residential land is illegal.”

“What?” I gasped, my options not only dwindling but becoming increasingly expensive.

“Well,” she asked, her tone efficient and practical, “where would you go to the bathroom?”

“Unrestricted” Doesn’t Apply to Pee and Poop (and What Else?)

Yep, folks. It’s all about the waste. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to live like an animal, peeing and pooping, willy-nilly, wherever I darned well please. I have neighbors, after all, and I really like them.

But technology for septic-less toilets has advanced considerably, offering a dizzying array of hygienic options. Processes for handling the transformed waste — be it composted, incinerated, or turned into white doves to release at weddings* — have also come a long way. Some of these technologies and processes have been developed, in fact, to relieve squalor in places where plumbing isn’t possible. And, as our rivers, streams, and oceans become increasingly polluted, we need more eco-conscious ways of managing human waste, in all its forms. Septic systems solve part of the problem, but not all of it.

The biggest — and most paralyzing — concern for me, however, has less to do with pee and poop, specifically, and more to do with my broader fears: What other rules and regulations have I missed that will become a barrier to living on The Boot? Will I be able to build my new life in stages, as I’d planned, or will I have to figure out how to fund all of it at once?

So, for those of you wondering why I don’t poop or get off the pot with this dragged-out adventure of mine, my answer is: Which pot? And what’s lurking under the lid waiting to bite me in the butt?

* I might be kidding about transforming poop into white doves. In case you wondered.

The road out, where coyote, deer, and bear poop without restrictions. But I’m not bitter.

Grab a long tape measure piece of string and a friend or family member.

Find a large room in your home — your living room or family room; maybe a clear spot in your basement or garage. Or go outside, if you must. But I suspect most of you have a big enough space in your home.

Have your friend stand in the middle of the space, holding the end of the string or tape measure. Pull your end out to 20′ and slowly walk in a circle, your friend turning with you. See the circle. Feel the circle.

Now, imagine:

Where would you put your bed?

How would you create a miniature kitchen?

What furniture would you need to carve out a comfortable place to sit?

Where would you store clothes? Your dishes? Your books?

Never mind the bathroom for now. Just the living space. Focus there.

Ask yourself: What is truly necessary to live a life of contentment?

My yurt, at the Home & Garden Show, awaiting disassembly and delivery.

We’d just crossed the sixth one-lane bridge between the property we were driving into the mountains to look at and anything remotely resembling a town. Six opportunities to be stuck on one side of a washed-out bridge or the other — going in or, more worrisome to me, coming out. Visions of not being able to get to a hospital spun around in my head.

My brother, John, didn’t take his eyes from the hairpin turns of the road I was cautiously navigating. “I don’t know why you didn’t turn around at bridge #3 when you first started saying that.”

I shrugged without looking at him. “Have you seen anywhere to turn around?”

“Good point,” he replied as a car whizzed past, its driver seemingly unconcerned that the two-lane road in the direction he was heading folded in half at the edge of a drop-off, then plunged up a blind hill. Maybe he was out of milk and eggs and had thrown caution to the wind, I silently posited.

I found a nearly-vertical driveway with a wide enough un-gated mouth to turn the 4Runner around without falling off into a ravine. It had a pretty decent view of the road snaking past it. Down below us, across the road, a cabin nestled in a sunlit clearing, the postcard version of all the similarly-nestled cabins we’d passed along the way. The cabin’s idyllic surroundings raised at least three flags for mistakes people make when buying rural land that formed the basis for my aversion to bridges. I peered as far up either side of the road as a I could, took a deep breath, and stomped on the accelerator, just as another car shot through the curve. I wasn’t comfortable with the margin by which we missed colliding but was thankful for it, nonetheless.

I risked a quick glance at my iPhone, where Google Maps was now showing us backtracking our route. The app had long since given up any active navigation and had simply been painting a blue line across the screen in the direction of the route it had chosen for us. As we retraced the route, the blue line became grey, indicating we were on the right road, which was a good thing, as I’d been so busy negotiating the crazy curves and hills that I wasn’t sure I could reverse the turns I’d taken on the way in without help.

“Google was showing we only had 10 minutes to go,” I smirked. “The listing said the property is 30 minutes from Asheville. I wonder if they confused 30 minutes with 30 miles.”

“The way people are driving up here,” John replied, “30 minutes and 30 miles are probably the same thing.”

Refining My “Requirements”

Western North Carolina’s rural landscape steals my breath away. Mountain coves hold in their embrace a patchwork of beautiful, rolling farmland and dark, stately forests stitched together by hair-raising two-lane roads. I found myself smitten with the area the first time I drove through it.

However, driving through a place is far different from taking up residence. I was just now getting a taste for the challenges of mountain living. Although I plan to live off-grid in a yurt, I do not plan to homestead or live as a hermit, so there are a few modern conveniences, such as grocery stores, that I’ll still need access to. Because my plan also includes rental yurts for “glamping” — a trend that combines aspects of a camping experience with the ease of a bed-and-breakfast — I want to be reasonably close to restaurants and other attractions, without my guests losing the feeling of staying in a mountain retreat. And, frankly, at nearly 54 years old, I have to consider how likely it is that I’ll be able to age in place. I don’t want to build my dream only to find myself too frail to maintain and enjoy it.

Yes, it’s a tall order. My requirements, in fact, completely blew my budget for the land purchase itself because finding such a property requires more acreage than I’d anticipated. Not only were covenants and restrictions a potential barrier to living the way I wanted to live, but so (apparently) was finding land that was both accessible and level enough to build on.

“Usable Mountain Land”

“This is a great piece of property,” Pat, my realtor breathed, turning to take in the cleared knoll at the top of what, for me, was a nearly vertical climb up a goat-path attempting to pass itself off as a road. “You could cut in another 15 feet or so, all the way around, and you’d have a nice homesite, with room for solar.”

On the climb up, necessitated by the fact that Pat didn’t think his minivan would make it up the unimproved road — which the boulder jutting out of the center of one of the steeper rises validated — he’d pointed out patches of less-crazily tilting ground. To my eye, these were mere ledges jutting from a forest that vaulted skyward. He’d point at one ledge or another, telling me, “You could put a guest yurt there…and one there…” I tried to imagine my guests struggling up a rutted drive, parking their vehicles on a narrow switchback, and hauling their gear or suitcases across a walkway spanning a deep rift in the earth before arriving at a yurt perched on a deck that jutted over the sharp drop.

I pictured my elderly parents afraid to visit.

The knoll was lovely, and the perc testing conducted by its current owners indicated that at least four people could live up there full-time. A broad stream bubbled along the bottom of the parcel, by the road, so water was plentiful. I wondered what kind of power would be required to pump that water all the way up to where we were standing, and what it would take to get any kind of pressure.

“You rarely see mountain property with this much usable land,” Pat said after a moment, grinning enthusiastically. “This is really sweet.”

My heart sank. If this was what usable mountain land looked like, and it was beginning to look like it was, based on our explorations that day, I had no idea what I was doing.

Later, at dinner, I shared my fears with my brother and his wife, Kim, who had come up to join us from their home in South Carolina.

“Maybe I should give this up,” I lamented. “Maybe I’m not cut out for mountain life.”

In fact, maybe, I thought, I am completely off my rocker and should be staying put, safe in my sweet little house in the city.

While the lovely North Carolina drawl riveted my attention, it wasn’t what first attracted it. That dubious honor went to the tall, slender form of its speaker — a silver-haired man clad in jeans and a button-down shirt, emerging with leisurely grace from a silver Mercedes — even before he spoke.

After a few fleeting seconds of entertaining, then rejecting, less appropriate responses, I managed to collect myself enough to say, “Perhaps, if you’re the property owner.”

“I am,” he said simply, extending his hand and introducing himself as Hugh.

My brother John and I were casually looking at a few properties before I was scheduled to meet with my realtor, Pat, later in the day. I hoped to get a preview of what was available now that I was ready to begin my search in earnest, and we’d been trying to locate the first property on my list, a partially-cleared 11-acre parcel. Confused by the addresses, I’d pulled my old 4Runner into a cutout in the road, parking it up against a farm gate where a rutted drive ran between a sizable pond on the one side and a sunken field on the other. As we gazed down at the field below us, I remarked to John that if that was the acreage, I’d have to pass. It didn’t look like it would take much for the pond on the other side to spill over the retaining wall and flood the field. We couldn’t be sure we were looking at the right parcel, however, because the realty sign was missing, and addresses for undeveloped land are approximate.

“Addresses out here aren’t as orderly as they are in the city,” Hugh commented in his soft, southern accent. “We make the numbers up as we need them.” He also explained the missing realty sign: The listing agent had gotten sideways with a local mining company by defending homeowners whose properties were damaged by illegal blasting activities. The company’s employees retaliated by making it difficult for her to do business — including stealing or destroying her signs any time they found one. My brother and I exchanged a glance.

“But this isn’t the parcel you’re looking for,” Hugh continued quietly, the loud, incessant barking of penned hounds across the road nearly drowning him out. He swept his arm up and away to a parcel adjacent to the land on which the dog run sat. “It’s that one.”

A sunny meadow nestled into the embrace of a woods, running more-or-less gently down to the road but vaulting sharply up into the trees at its opposite end. It was beautiful, but I wondered — neither for the first nor the last — what it would take to balance a structure on the slope. Hugh had bought the property, as well as the one on which we were standing, as a “buffer” for the rest of the neighborhood. Over a decade ago, a developer expressed interest in the land, planning to put a trailer park on it. Hugh, a retired Christmas tree grower, wouldn’t have it. He’d purchased some 25 acres to prevent the developer’s progress. I thought of the dilapidated trailers and shacks we’d passed on our way up to this idyllic meadow. Less than picturesque, to be sure. Which begged the question Hugh asked next.

“And what do you plan to build on the property you buy?”

I took a deep breath, inwardly steeling myself before levelly replying: “I plan to put a yurt on it.”

Blowing My Land Budget

When I’d started my search for land in western North Carolina, more than a year prior to meeting Hugh, I’d told my first realtor (Laura) I wanted a three-to-five-acre plot, partly wooded, with a mountain view. I wanted enough space for my own yurt as well as two or three guest yurts that would become a source of income, as well as guest quarters for visiting family and friends. Using my sister’s three-acre lot as a guide, I determined that a similarly-sized lot would afford me a little privacy without putting too much distance between myself and my guests.

Linda obliged me by sending links to listings within about a 25-mile radius of Asheville, which I hoped to make a kind of hub for shopping, eating out, and social activities. Being reasonably close to Asheville would be a bonus for yurt renters and guests, as well, since it’s a sought-out destination for everything from brew pubs to fall color tours to tours of the Biltmore Estate. But I also wanted to be far enough away from the city for my home to feel like a retreat into nature.

And, so I’d explored the area, mapping out routes to the listings Linda sent me, taking notes about the tiny towns and rolling countryside, getting a feeling for this place I was considering making my home. I thought a lot on those drives: about the kind of neighbors I hoped I’d have; about driveways and right-of-ways; about mountain views and valley vistas; about forests and meadows and streams. I dreamed. I planned. I learned.

Before I knew it, a year had passed, and I had a new realtor, Pat, whom I’d contacted and with whom shared my vision. I was still readying my house in Indianapolis for the market when he sent the first set of listings. I was over the moon when I sat down to open them. And then…

What the heck?! Ten acres? Eleven? THIRTY???!!!

I fired off a (slightly testy) email, reminding him what I’d asked him to find for me. He responded to my email with a phone call — as he (thankfully) so often does — and patiently explained.

Smaller plots, like the ones I sought, are generally situated in or near developments, where covenants and restrictions apply — and, while defaulted loans and estate sales happen, those plots are quickly snatched up. So Pat was sending me listings for at least 10 acres to help me realize my stated goals for the property. They were twice the acreage I’d planned for, more than twice what my projected budget would allow. But they were more likely to afford me the flexibility I wanted.

As long as what I wanted didn’t conflict too drastically with the aesthetic of where I planned to buy.

Covenants and Revisions

At the mention of a yurt, Hugh’s face stiffened, almost imperceptibly.

“I think you should drive on up the road there,” he suggested, tightly controlling his tone and indicating the ridge behind us with its big homes and beautiful approaches, “and see what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

“That’s a good idea,” I replied neutrally. “And I’ll definitely do that. But it seems you have…hesitations. Maybe you’d do me the favor of sharing them?”

Hugh let out a big sigh, then expressed concerns about how yurts would look from the road and what they might lead others to believe they could bring into the area — implying that I’d be setting a bad example.

“You know, Hugh,” I said carefully, “I don’t have to plunk a yurt right in the middle of that meadow. In fact, they’re devilishly difficult to cool in the summer, and I like my privacy, so it would actually be better if I tucked it back in the trees, away from view.”

Hugh pursed his lips and squinted at the tree line. “So we’d really only see it in the winter…”

“Exactly,” I told him. “And, you know, I’m certainly not opposed to planting trees and shrubs to screen people’s view. I love beautiful landscaping. Living in a yurt won’t change that.” I spent a few minutes painting a picture of my vision, of the need for beauty and for living in closer harmony with whatever land I bought, about the value of leaving some spaces natural. When I paused for a moment, Hugh offered to drive me up the ridge to show me where I would cut my driveway in from the road. My brother and I jumped into the truck with Bodhi, who had been waiting patiently for us, and we followed Hugh’s silver Mercedes up the rise, away from the ear-splitting racket of the neighbors’ hounds.

Later, in Pat’s office, we reviewed the listings he’d sent me, eliminating some of them because they were too remote, too hard to access, had too many bridges to wash out between the grocery store and me. As he clicked through the links, he found a listing for 11 acres of partially-wooded land.

“Well, that one’s out,” Pat said with a little grimace. “There are covenants restricting what you can build there. It has to be at least 1600 square feet, and…”

“What’s the address?” I interrupted. He told me.

“Oh, Hugh’s place.”

Pat cocked an eyebrow at me, and my brother cut in. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. Denise had him changing the covenants for her by the time they were done talking. It took her 20 minutes.”

Pat raised both his eyebrows at that, then laughed. “Really?”

John shrugged with feigned casualness. “Yeah, she was a bit off her game today.”

As I’ve been doing my purging, I’ve been fussing about the difficulty of the exercise on Facebook. At some point a little while back, I realized that in addition to my emotional attachments to books, I also seemed to be struggling with paring down my sock collection. Well, ok, “collection” is a strong word, implying a kind of intentional acquisition, when in actuality my sock drawers (yes, plural) filled more organically than intentionally. Still, when faced with discarding some of my socks, I found myself getting teary-eyed. “Oh,” I’d sniff sentimentally, “these were the socks I wore when hiking the Badlands of South Dakota.” (Then I sniffed physically, and into the waste bin they went. But not all my choices were that easy.)

In one of my sillier Facebook whine-fests, I asked people to supply me with arguments — in poem form — for ridding myself of excess socks. I got many good responses, but this one from my sister-in-law was my favorite. I asked if I could share it, and she graciously gave me permission. I give you…

I took a deep breath and stepped inside what hours ago been the home of a dear friend. The lingering intensity of the smoke smell created the impression that the house was still smoldering. The worn wood floors already warped with the water damage, and the blackened walls, combined with the boards we’d just finished putting over the broken windows, made the interior murky and dark. On my right, just inside the door, was the floor-to-ceiling bookcase I’d often envied. All of those wonderful books, reduced now to charred corpses with unreadable spines and disintegrating, water-logged pages. Irretrievable.

Years later, reflecting on the emotional and spiritual toll the fire had taken on her, my friend told me, “I realized, after the fire, that my things owned me, not the other way around. I won’t ever let that happen again.”

Discarding the Stuff that Held Me Hostage

I’ve been on a journey of…well, discovery as I prepare myself for living in a yurt. The yurt itself is simply an approach to bringing my lived values into better alignment with my stated values. I’ve always perceived myself as someone who valued simplicity and sustainability.

Then I take a look around at all my stuff. And I realize I’m being held hostage to modern convenience and all of its material trappings.

So the past year or so, I’ve been focusing more on discarding my excess belongings. There are a lot of them. Some of these belongings are things I picked up because they were “cute” or “fun” — but served no purpose except to collect dust. Others have been gifts from friends and family — highly appreciated but loved less for themselves than for the givers. Still others have simply been duplicates — the outward manifestations of a scarcity mindset, where one of an item is never enough because…what if? After watching T.E.D. Talks about minimalism and reading blog posts about throwing stuff away and even purchasing a book, I finally found an approach that worked for me.

I was a Tasmanian devil, stuff flying in every direction and landing in boxes for donation or to be gifted to friends and family members who said they wanted some of the things I discarded. I even sold a few major items — yay, me! It was glorious. Freeing. With every box I carried to my truck, I felt lighter. A minimalist lifestyle was soon to be mine!

Then I slammed right into a brick wall: my books.

The Things We Own and the Things that Own Us

My books mean more to me than some members of my family. (Sorry, Uncle George, but I can’t keep you. I’ve found you a nice, new family in Newark. Here’s your suitcase. Pretend we never met.) In fact, some of my books have moved hundreds of miles with me — twice — because I couldn’t part with them. And I’m not talking about a box or two of books. This is a book collection that has its own zip code. (Slight exaggeration.)

From Arthurian legend to sustainable living; from paper-craft to poetry; from contemporary Native American literature to philosophy and yoga and drawing and cookbooks…the list of topics and genres covers a broad territory of human thought and activity. My books define and describe me; they entertain and inform me; they ground me. They’re an important part of my identity. They evoke emotions that no electronic version can mimic, much less replace. I love the smell of them, the weight of them in my hands, the way I can thumb through their pages and rediscover them again and again. I’ve made notes in many of them, conversations with myself that remind me of who I’ve been and by what paths I became the woman I am today.

My books aren’t just “things,” I thought. They’re an extension of me. My books…are my history.

It was this last insight that provided me with the perspective I needed to let them go. History is important — we need it to ground ourselves and to connect with vital parts of who we are. But I’m not building a history. I’m building a future, and I need to find other (less space-consuming) ways to stay connected with my emotional past. Why was I carrying around the books I’d collected for the PhD I’ll never finish? Why did I hang onto that “must-read” when I knew I didn’t want to, so I never would? How many of those gardening books did I really refer to — and why was I keeping the ones that weren’t already dog-eared and dirty and worn with years of use? Did I really need to hang onto all that Shakespeare, or could I simply Google the bon mot I wanted to quote, when the need arose? (Yes, I’m serious. Don’t judge.)

Slowly, I began unwinding the tentacles that were strangling my heart and freeing myself of the weight of my literary history.

Thinking Inside the (Moving) Box

As the weeks went on, I sold or donated the books I realized I no longer loved — or, in fact, never did love. The books that still had meaning to me but no longer had a real use, I gave to friends I thought would enjoy them. (And they can feel free to donate or sell them as they choose.) I’m setting a target for only a few boxes of books instead of the library I’ve been lugging along with me every time I move. Every time I hold a book in my hand, I try to separate myself from it and focus on how I feel about it, all by itself.

I still have shelves and shelves to empty, but my paring-down now makes me more intentional about how I define words like love and need. I’m learning to hang onto what I truly treasure, those things I retain for themselves and not for some perceived obligation or the wistful memory of a path not followed.

I’m learning about traveling light, without the drag of a past I no longer need. I want to own my things, not be owned by them.

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